Abdulakarim BobadeThe question being asked is: How can someone steal N80 billion in less than a month in office? How much was in the state’s coffers? What was the entire budget for that year?The EFCC was well aware of an order given on Wednesday, April 17, by Justice I.A. Jamil of High Court, in Lokoja, in a substantive judgment enforcing the fundamental human rights of the applicant and restraining the EFCC from arresting, detaining or prosecuting Yahaya Bello based on the criminal charges pending before the said Federal High Court in respect of offences allegedly committed when he was not a governor.Bello’s media office has demanded an explanation for a situation where three courts in the same Federal High Court, Abuja Division, are saddled with hearing the same charges simultaneously.
The EFCC boss, Ola Olukoyede, who himself is a lawyer ought to know that blatant disobedience of court orders, abuse of court processes, forum shopping, and sundry underhand tactics in carrying out its mandate is a threat to social cohesion and public order and a law enforcement agency should not be the poster child for such conduct.
Indeed, this whole episode contradicts Olukoyede’s promise upon assuming office last year to abide by the rule of law in the conduct of EFCC’s operations. He should know that the EFCC cannot afford to choose which orders of the court to obey and which to ignore with the consequence of ridiculing the nation’s criminal justice system and the judiciary at large. Nigeria should not be made a laughing stock in the comity of nations on account of the misdeeds of an agency saddled with enforcing the law.
Also, it is about time that the EFCC stops its unwholesome practice of invading homes with military style force under the pretext of arresting people. Ordinary citizens, many of them innocent, including students, business people and politicians have all fallen victim to EFCC’s Gestapo operations that do little to portray it in a good light. A person of Bello’s stature could have been invited and that would be it but when trust is lost on account of seemingly frivolous charges, there is bound to be some pushback hence his resort to the courts.
This is why the presidency is being asked to call the anti-graft agency to order and impress on it that it should not allow itself to be used an as agent of political persecution by a nest of vicious vipers within the system rather than pursuing genuine cases of corruption.
The political connection in all of this comedy of the absurd, as Bello’s media team pointed out, has been exposed by the composition of the legal team of the EFCC in their purported fresh case. On the list of the EFCC lawyers is a lawyer who is also the lead counsel and kinsman to the candidate of a political party at the Kogi governorship Tribunal.
The same lawyer is the EFCC’s lawyer in the civil suit filed against the EFCC by Yahaya Bello and is aware of the interim order of the court issued against his client restraining it from arresting, inviting and prosecuting him pending the determination of the suit before the Court.
Yet, during the pendency of that order, which he appealed against, he joined others in causing to be filed, a charge against Yahaya Bello, an action contemptuous of the order of that court.
However, despite all its efforts to nail Bello, the Kogi state government had stated unequivocally on many occasions that all its financial records are clean and up-to-date and that there are no missing or stolen funds belonging to the state.
Nobody can say that the EFCC should not do its job but it needs to put its house in order and conduct extensive investigations to build watertight cases before approaching the courts so that citizens will see that it is implementing its mandate in a fair, clear and transparent manner. That is the essence of the rule of law mantra espoused by its boss.
*Prof. Bobade, a political science lecturer, writes from Osun State
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